Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus

Directive 41 made the southern wing the main effort for the 1942 campaign. Its first operational requirement was destruction of the Soviet forces west of the Don rather than an immediate dash by every mobile formation toward the oilfields.

The German counterstroke around Kharkov in May destroyed much of the Soviet Barvenkovo salient and inflicted severe losses on formations that would otherwise have reinforced the southern front.

At daylight on 28 June Fourth Panzer Army, Second Army and Hungarian Second Army opened the offensive east of Kursk after a short artillery preparation. German armour crossed the Tim and Kshen and moved rapidly toward the land bridge leading to Voronezh.

After weather delays, Sixth Army opened its part of the offensive on 30 June and drove deeply toward the Oskol. Together with Fourth Panzer Army's movement farther north, the advance threatened to surround the Soviet forces still west of the river.

By 3 July Fourth Panzer Army had established bridgeheads over the Don west of Voronezh. Bock informed his subordinate commanders that the enemy opposite the main German armies appeared defeated and prepared to release mobile formations for the next movement.

German mobile formations entered the western part of Voronezh on 6 July while Soviet forces retained the east-bank positions and continued fighting around the crossings. Hitler had already warned against consuming the fast divisions in a prolonged urban battle.

On 6 July the Soviet high command permitted the southern wing to withdraw east rather than hold every prepared position regardless of the danger of encirclement. Ziemke notes that the exact timing is not perfectly clean: German Sixth Army was already observing a general withdrawal during the day.

First Panzer Army was ordered into the next phase on 9 July before its refit and concentration were complete. Fourth Panzer Army was still disengaging from the Voronezh area and moving more than a hundred miles across ground already traversed by other German formations.

On 12 July Stavka created Stalingrad Front from Timoshenko's former Southwest Front headquarters, reserve armies and the surviving Twenty-first Army. Its mission was to defend the Don and the approaches inside the great bend before Sixth Army could reach the Volga.

On 13 July Hitler ordered Fedor von Bock to turn Army Group B over to Maximilian von Weichs. The immediate dispute concerned the movement of Fourth Panzer Army away from Voronezh and Hitler's anger over delays and fuel.

On 15 July elements of First and Fourth Panzer Armies met south of Millerovo. The meeting technically closed the movement ordered against the retreating Soviet armies, but it did not create the continuous pocket anticipated by the planners.

On 17 July advance elements of Sixth Army met the forward positions of Stalingrad Front along the Chir and inside the Don bend. The encounter opened the defensive battle on the approaches to the city.

On 20 July Hitler ordered Sixth Army to leave lighter forces securing the Don and to take Stalingrad by a rapid assault. Corps and divisions previously associated with the southern concentration were shifted back toward Paulus.

First Panzer Army and Seventeenth Army entered Rostov on 23 July after Soviet rear guards withdrew across the Don. German troops established crossings and bridgeheads that opened the road into the Kuban and Caucasus.

Directive 45 was issued on 23 July and reached Army Groups A and B on 25 July. Its preamble declared that the main Soviet defensive strength in the south had, for practical purposes, already been destroyed.

On 25 July Sixth Army encountered stronger Soviet resistance inside the Don bend as Stalingrad Front's armies came into contact with the German advance. The fight was no longer a pursuit across undefended steppe.

Stalin signed Order No. 227 on 28 July as the retreat in the south threatened to pass from deliberate withdrawal into uncontrolled loss of territory and cohesion. The order condemned unauthorised retreat and introduced penal formations and blocking detachments.

By the end of July Army Group A had crossed the lower Don and was taking the railway centres that opened the routes toward Tikhoretsk, Stavropol and the Kuban. Soviet rear guards were still retreating rather than attempting to hold a continuous line north of the Caucasus.

On 31 July Hitler revised Directive 45 and transferred Fourth Panzer Army headquarters with three corps back to Army Group B for the Stalingrad operation. One of its panzer corps remained with First Panzer Army in the south.

In the first week of August Army Group A spread rapidly south from the lower Don. Mobile formations reached Stavropol while the western wing moved through Tikhoretsk toward the Kuban and Black Sea approaches.

German mobile troops reached Armavir on 6 August, threatening the western oil district and the routes leading from the Kuban into the central Caucasus.

German troops entered the Maikop oil district on 9 August after Soviet demolition teams had removed equipment and wrecked wells, power installations, pipelines and processing facilities.

On the eastern side of the campaign German motorised forces reached Elista in the Kalmyk steppe, extending the front toward the lower Volga and the distant Astrakhan routes.

On 20 August Wolfram von Richthofen told List that nearly all of Luftflotte 4's available aircraft, except small remnants, would have to shift to the Stalingrad battle.

On 21 August a detachment of German mountain troops reached the summit of Elbrus and planted German flags. The climb produced striking propaganda images and demonstrated how far Army Group A had penetrated into the high Caucasus.

On 23 August XIV Panzer Corps broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad, creating a narrow corridor that cut the city's northern land approaches. Luftflotte 4 simultaneously mounted a major attack on the city.

First Panzer Army reached Mozdok on the north bank of the Terek on 24 August. The river formed the last major natural barrier before the approaches toward Grozny, Makhachkala and the eastern military roads.

On 6 September Seventeenth Army broke into Novorossiysk and captured the city centre and naval installations after fighting through the approaches from the north.

After weeks of argument over the pace and direction of the Caucasus campaign, Keitel met Wilhelm List privately on the morning of 10 September. List then withdrew from command of Army Group A.

On 23 September Seventeenth Army began a renewed advance along the Maikop–Tuapse road, with additional corps entering the effort over the following days. The straight-line distance to the port concealed the difficulty of the route.

Hitler removed Franz Halder as chief of the Army General Staff on 24 September after months of argument over Soviet strength, operational priorities and the Führer's increasingly direct management of the campaign.

SS Wiking crossed the Terek after dark on 25 September and attacked toward Malgobek the following morning. In about a day and a half the division reached to within roughly a mile of the town but failed to secure the heights needed for a clean breakthrough south.

On 25 October Romanian 2nd Mountain Division opened the Nalchik operation, followed by German panzer divisions moving through the river valleys toward Alagir, Gizel and Ordzhonikidze.

By 2 November German armour had reached the Gizel area on the western approaches to Ordzhonikidze. This was the deepest penetration of the final Caucasus offensive.

Soviet counterattacks closed against the Gizel salient during the first week of November and threatened to isolate the German armour east of its supporting formations.

On 18 November Army Group A remained deep in the Caucasus while Sixth Army fought inside Stalingrad. Between those two German concentrations, long sectors of the Don were held by Romanian, Italian and Hungarian armies with limited modern anti-tank strength and only thin German mobile reserves behind them.